6 Performance-Enhancing Drugs More Common Than You Think

When news broke that Lance Armstrong's cycling trophies were being stripped from him because of his use of performance enhancing drugs, the Internet-o-highway erupted in a chorus of finger wagging and tongue clucking. "How dare he cheat at a method of transportation?" it collectively shrieked. "Riding bikes is supposed to be hard!"

But a subset of the Internet, a cooler, more rational, probably more handsome subset, had a different reaction. "Performance-Enhancing Drugs, you say?" we asked, looking up from our morning newspapers and gazing into the middle distance. "As a proven performer, I find that very interesting. I wonder if there are drugs that could improve useful activities instead?"

Kraig Scarbinsky/Lifesize/Getty Images"I shall become the Lance Armstrong of Haberdashing!"

Seeking, as always, to provide dangerously underresearched advice to our readers, Cracked set to work dangerously underresearching this. And indeed, it turns out that there are several other types of drugs available that can boost a user's performance in any number of ways. Furthermore, many of these drugs are already used, by real professionals in real jobs, probably the same ones who keep beating you in job interviews. So, for the doping-curious among you, here are five of the biggest performance-enhancing drugs you should be injecting into your eyeballs right now.

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"Please, please don't take any drugs because of something you read on this, or really any website."

#6. Stimulants

As used by truck drivers, fighter pilots, soldiers, shift workers, journalists, you (probably).

This is a big one, the performance-enhancing drug that about three-quarters of you are probably using right now, if only in one of its most socially acceptable forms.

Ablestock.com/AbleStock.com/Getty ImagesAssuming it's fair trade coffee of course. If it's not, you can go right to hell.

And, sure, that's just caffeine. But if it makes you more alert (and pleasant to be around), it counts, and, in some instances, is almost a mandatory part of the job. Shift workers, doctors, and anyone else who has to bust their hump late at night are all very familiar with caffeine. Comedy writers, too -- somewhere in the neighborhood of every article Cracked has ever written has involved the consumption of caffeine. Lacking it, who knows how dangerous our advice would be?

And then there's the harder stuff. Journalists, the slightly less respectable brethren of comedy writers, have also been known to use stimulants. David Plotz, the editor at Slate, has admitted to boosting his journalistic endurance with Modafinil, a drug used to treat narcolepsy. He claims it makes him twice as productive, which seems a bit of a stretch given Slate's inability to publish badass lists of anything. And let's not forget truck drivers, who were long notorious for their amphetamine consumption, at least until the 1980s, when random drug testing was implemented.

Comstock/Comstock/Getty Images"Now Ronald Reagan says we're not supposed to give you any more Go Pills, so instead, we've got you here a clipboard made entirely out of crystal meth."

Happily for truck-doping enthusiasts, the practice is evidently still common in Brazil, where it is presumably accompanied by hilarious mariachi music.

#5. Sedatives

As used by shift workers, doctors, soldiers.

Kind of the flip-side of stimulants, sedatives are used by many professionals as the off-switch that gets flicked at the end of their busy days. They're especially popular among workers who need stimulants to make it through their shift, only to find themselves staring at the alarm clock at 9 a.m., massively strung out, and needing to get some rest before they can get back to their terrible, terrible jobs.

Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images"What's that, Captain Flashlight? You think $8 an hour might not be worth risking my mental health? Wait a second! You're not Captain Flashlight at all! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH THE REAL CAPTAIN FLASHLIGHT?"

They're a big thing in the military, as well; the Air Force, which has been using stimulants (or "Go Pills") for at least the past 60 years, gives out sedatives quaintly called "No-Go Pills," and good lord do we hope they're a different color or something.

#4. Anti-Nausea Agents

Anti-nausea agents don't need to be explained, do they? They make the user less nauseated. That's what anti means, right?

Erik S. Lesser/Getty Images News/Getty ImagesNo, that's "Anty."

Anti-nausea agents are obviously handy for people who work on boats in roughs seas, scuba divers, or really anyone who faces the risk of barfing during the workday.

Comstock/Comstock/Getty Images"Is that- ? Have you been eating Lego?"

More exotically, anti-nausea agents are part of the medical cabinet that's apparently crammed in to every astronaut before each mission. Along with the expected amphetamines (because space is pretty boring) and sedatives (because it also may be filled with terrifying space monsters), every astronaut has a supply of anti-nausea agents like Scopolamine so they don't get barf all over the space station, which would be pretty close to a nightmare to clean up in a micro-g environment.

Jupiterimages/liquidlibrary/Getty Images"NO DON'T THROW DOWN SAWDUST, YOU IDIOT. HOW DID YOU EVEN GET THAT HERE?"